


In Another Life

by AerithFaremis



Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Romance, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:48:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26012866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AerithFaremis/pseuds/AerithFaremis
Summary: [Semi - alternative universe]Fifty years after saving the Planet, Aerith receives something special.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Cloud Strife
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	In Another Life

Every afternoon after five o'clock, Harry would leave his office and go home after a long day's work. He sighed, tired, as he approached the subway station and sighed even more, for he knew the crowds of people who would be waiting there to take the subway home.

When he arrived at the station, he found everything just as he had expected: crowded with people going back and forth, children with their parents about to take the train, new arrivals... and, as he always did, Harry stood on a corner, trying to avoid as many people as he could. He took his smartphone out of his pocket and checked the messages. The first one was from his wife:

**Rose:**

_" Baby, I'll be in the park with our son and his friends. Maybe we'll be home a little late, they're celebrating a birthday!"_

Harry smiled and replied:

_"Don't worry, honey. I'll catch up and go visit Mom."_

Harry heard the almost robotic voice from the station's loudspeaker announcing the next subway:

_"In a few moments, subway number two will arrive on the platform, bound for Sector 5. I repeat. In a few moments..."_

He rushed to the line at the entrance to the car and unwittingly bumped into a gentleman in his late seventies who was leaning on a cane and who made a small groan when he was hit.

"Oh, dear! I'm so sorry, sir." Harry apologized, quickly "are you all right?"

The man, who had a singular hairstyle full of gray, nodded his head, regaining his composure.

"Yeah. Don't worry. I was wandering around too," the man said, looking up. Harry had seen many faces and many different people in his thirty-six years of life, but he had never seen eyes as peculiar as those of the old man he had just bumped into. They were an intense blue, with a green ring around the pupil, and his gaze was deep but fierce. But the blue-eyed man also stood staring at Harry, slightly dumbfounded, examining his short brown hair, with a slight upward wave in his bangs, and those deep green eyes full of serenity. The old man was sure he had seen that look before...

"Uh... sir? Are you sure you're all right?" asked Harry again, a little uncomfortable with the intense analysis the man was giving him.

"Yes... yes. Thank you..." Without further ado, the old man stepped into the wagon and, although Harry, puzzled, kept his eye on him, he set foot in the carriage, before the doors closed.

*

The old man got off one stop earlier, in Sector 4, and slowly walked home. Before opening the door, he slowly bent down and caressed some flowers he had in a pot, which he cared for with dedication and affection. If he had been told fifty years earlier that he would end up loving the flowers, he would have mocked mercilessly and laughed. But they say that when you love someone, you end up loving what they are passionate about, and the same thing had happened to him.

He entered his house and turned on the lights, leaving his cane by the door and sitting on the couch. Before reading the newspaper, as he usually did when he came home, he took the picture that was resting on the living room table and smiled, a smile furrowed by the wrinkles of old age.

He would have given his life to spend the rest of his years with the beautiful woman in the photograph, the only one who had made him happy for so long. But when the time came for them to make the decision, to choose between protecting the Planet or preserving their love relationship, she implored that they should not be selfish. That they should think of all human beings, of plants, of animals. But, Cloud wondered, who would think of them in the future? Who would remember to help them when the nights were cold and they were not together to embrace and love each other? He had been asking himself the same question for fifty years, but the only answer he got was that she was still alive. She was still happy somewhere in Midgar, caring for her flowers and brightening the days of others. And that was all he needed for peace of mind. It was the price they had to pay if they wanted to save the planet.

But it was hard. Tough. It was hard to know that a few miles away from him was the woman he loved and whom he could never embrace again because of Fate. As he had done every day for fifty years, he kissed the photograph for a few seconds and, with hands trembling from his old age, placed it back on the table.

He took the newspaper and began to read. He turned the pages without finding anything interesting, nothing that would attract his attention. Cloud noticed that his vision was failing him more and more, and that he was a little more tired than the time before. But his tiredness dissipated instantly when, in the "Technological Advances" section, he found the photograph of the young man he had bumped into that afternoon before entering the subway car. And when he read his name and the news item that accompanied the photograph, everything "clicked" in his head:

**HARRY GAINSBOROUGH. THE YOUNG SCIENTIST FROM MIDGAR, A PIONEER IN MATERIA ENERGIES.**

_Harry Gainsborough, one of Corel's company scientists, is getting closer to finding a new form of energy through materia that could be revolutionary for our city. In agreement with Corel and also with Junon, the young man, who belongs to the Group of Scientists Type E, could change our lives from one moment to the next. We wish him a lot of luck_!

Cloud was speechless. He looked around his room, with the open newspaper still in his hands, as he felt one foot shaking and his heart racing dangerously fast.

*

The next day, Harry, again after five, left the office. That had been a pretty tough day, but, as in any scientific investigation, sometimes progress is made and sometimes no progress at all. He went to the subway station, as he does every afternoon, and stood in his usual corner. He checked his Smartphone and answered the messages he had pending. But then he felt an insistent look staring at him. He raised his head and looked to his right, meeting the old man he had bumped into the day before. He smiled, a bright smile, and waved to him.

"Hello," said Harry, "what a coincidence! We meet again."

"Yes. Uh... I read the paper yesterday and saw that you were researching... new energies" said the old man.

Harry chuckled a little and the old man felt his heart quiver a little. It was a laugh just like the one from...

"Yes, well... the newspapers say so many things... it's true that I'm investigating, but not everything is going as well as they say. We could have made more progress." He said.

"Yeah, I don't know why I trusted the local paper..."

"Don't worry. Well, I'm... Harry. Harry Gainsborough. Pleased to meet you, Mr..."

"Cloud." The old man introduced himself, shaking the hand that the young man had held for him, with a slight smile.

"Cloud, pleased to meet you. Do you live in Sector 5 too? I've never seen you there," said Harry, his hands clasped behind his back and his head bowed to the side.

"In Sector 4. I moved there forty-five years ago," he said, grimacing. At his age, it hurt to count the years.

"I see. I used to live in Sector 3, but my wife and I decided to move there to keep my mother company," explained the green-eyed man.

"Just your mother?" asked Cloud, trying not to sound too curious, but he couldn't help it.

Harry, who didn't seem to notice anything strange, burst out laughing.

"Yes... when I was fourteen, my father got tired and left. But my mother, she got me through it. She's a heroine."

"I know she is. Uh, I... I mean... I can tell she is!" said Cloud, blushing slightly under the wrinkles on his cheeks, dodging Harry's gaze.

"Hm...? Is something wrong, Mr. Cloud? Are you all right?" he asked, coming over to check that everything was all right. He seemed to be shaking slightly.

"Yes. Thank you. This... listen. This is going to sound strange to you and I know it is, but... here." Cloud handed him an envelope with a letter inside it and Harry looked at the letter for a few moments, frowning. "Take it," Cloud insisted. The young man took it between his fingers and watched it for a few moments, then looked at the old man curiously. "Harry, we don't know each other at all, but... can you make me a promise?"

Harry swallowed his spit before continuing. In the background, he heard the voice of the loudspeaker, as he did every afternoon, but he didn't even pay attention. Something told him he had to listen to Mr. Cloud.

"Yes."

Cloud nodded firmly.

"Give... that letter to your mother. Thank you and... I hope we'll meet again."

The young man tried to stop Cloud, but he got mixed up with the crowd that was about to get on the wagon. He looked once more at the letter in his hands and let out a sigh.

*

Aerith watered the flowers in her garden, careful not to slip on the wet soil. She laughed softly at the thought that, at her age, age no longer forgave falls or blows, so she had to be doubly careful. She bent down a little and looked at the beautiful flowers, which grew strong and healthy in the garden, forever young.

"Mom!" she heard. Aerith smiled and the little wrinkles around her beautiful green eyes were slightly accentuated. The light of her life had come to visit her, her only son, whom she loved madly.

"Darling!" she greeted, leaving the watering can on the floor and slowly approaching to give him a hug. Harry was very much like her when she was young.

"I have something for you," said her son, pulling the letter the old man had given her earlier out of his pocket. Aerith frowned, looking at the letter.

"What is this? Who gave it to you?" she asked, curious.

"An old man in the subway station. His name was...hm...oh yes! Cloud" Harry stepped forward to enter his mother's house, but Aerith felt her heart stop and opened her eyes wide, holding the letter with trembling fingers. Cloud? The one she had loved all her life without end? The one she had tried to forget by imposition of Fate and the one she kept remembering every day and every night? She had set out to do her duty, and to do it she had had to sacrifice many things. Fate's words had been very clear: "You will have to separate yourself from your loved ones if you want to save the Planet." And that was what she had done all her life, forgetting herself and fighting for her loved ones. She didn't risk disobeying Fate for fear that something terrible might happen, even after so long.

Unable to wait any longer, she opened the letter and pulled out the paper inside. He began to read:

_My flower:_

_I know it's been almost fifty years since we last saw each other, that we hugged and kissed. Since the time when Fate forced us to separate forever, to save everyone and make the world a better, happier place. And even though I don't feel complete, I still find happiness in your memory. In remembering how your beautiful green eyes were, your smell of flowers and earth; how your hands felt between mine, your body embraced by mine during each night we traveled around the world, living new adventures. Your laughter was and still is the light of my days, though I can only hear it in my memory. But, none of these matters now. It is no use me complaining or kicking like a little boy about what happened in the past, for I know that the decision we made was the one that made you feel complete and happy, and I can never regret doing something that made you feel that way. The reason I am writing you this letter is because I wanted you to know that neither Fate nor a thousand battles can make me forget you or stop loving you. No matter how much I miss you in the mornings, when I close my eyes, I dream of you and our own world and I know that you are with me. I hold you there and love you in life and death and dreams._

_PS: I still have the flower you gave me when we met. I give it back to you, because I want you to give it to me when we meet again, in another life._

Aerith smiled tenderly, as tears ran down her cheeks. She had just felt it. Cloud had just returned to the Planet. She caressed the yellow flower, intact and powerful despite all the years that had passed.It had not managed to wilt.

"I still love you too. There is little time left for us to meet again," mumbled Aerith, looking at the blue sky and the clouds that floated in it, "there is little time left for us to embrace each other forever. And, then, we will never be apart."

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked this story! Feel free to leave a comment if you want, and I will happily read it!


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